Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Sesame Street

You probably have to be the parent of a small child to understand the full importance of this, but the new season (the fortieth - Sesame Street is 40 today) of Sesame Street aired today. What is so important about this (to me and many other parents, I'm sure) is that the people at PBS choose to only air the current season and a few episodes from the one before that and do so repetitively. So that means in any given season, you see the same 10 to 15 episodes countless times. While kids don't mind, this grates on the adult mind! So I was quite excited to see a new episode - one I hadn't seen - on our DVR (yes, we DVR children's cartoons....they are never on when I need them....like right before naptime....by then it is all teen stuff that my son could care less about (yet, of course....scary thought!)). And, guess who was on this new episode? Michelle Obama (I posted the videos at the APB - that link)! But seriously, I was so excited to see NEW material. Given that Sesame Street as FORTY YEARS of episodes this is RIDICULOUS!!! Give us poor parents some variety!!!

Now you can buy some of the old stuff on DVD - we bought two DVD sets of the original stuff (so 1969 through the mid-70s) and guess what they put at the beginning? A disclaimer that is isn't suitable for modern children!!!! Are they serious???? My son is SO watching it! [did you know Oscar started out orange?] People are crazy is all I have to say. We also like to buy the old cartoons - you know the Acme hammer stuff? The GOOD stuff...they carry the same blasted disclaimers!!! Are modern children that much stupider than we were that they can't differentiate between cartoons and reality? Or are parents that stupid? Or just that sue-happy? Seriously, have we dropped so low as as a society that we can't understand the fun of the Acme hammer?

Oh, also on Sesame Street - they started out just as crazy multicultural as they are today. Then it was mostly on racial issues (the most current problem then), but still - just as focused on that subject. Ray and I joke that in any given scene of Sesame Street you can't find two children of the same ethnicity! While I'm all for multiculturalism, they tend to push it a little far at times!

4 comments:

I started watching sesame street again a little with Addie, even though she is still way too young. I was really disappointed with how much of sesame street is Elmo's World, I really like the other bits better.